1870. } MR. R. SWINHOE ON CHINESE MAMMALS, 643 
strength can oppose the Tiger. When enraged it will wound people 
with its tusks, abruptly breaking their ribs or goring their bellies. 
It rushes on its object like the wind. Hunters dare not shoot them.”’ 
The Chinese colonists have introduced their black hollow-backed 
breed of Pigs from South China ; and among the villages of the plains 
you see none but these. At Takow a European imported a large 
white English tame boar, and it was allowed freely to cross with the 
Chinese Pigs; and an improved piebald breed has been the result, 
and has shown itself perfectly fertile when crossed with the sire, with 
one another, and with the Chinese Pig. 
In Ogilby’s ‘ Atlas Chinensis,’ ii. p. 8, we read that on the ar- 
rival of the Dutch in Formosa in the early part of the seventeenth 
century, when the Chinese were just beginning to colonize, every 
aboriginal ‘‘ woman had commonly a great Pig running after her, as 
we use to have a Dog.” Thus before the islanders had intercourse 
with the outer world they had a Pig of their own, which is still 
found among the tribes of the central mountains. These are curious 
animals, of a chestnut-red colour throughout ; but I have occasionally 
seen examples patched with white. The young of this breed are 
also red, the skin and all the soft and horny parts being stained with 
more or less of the prevailing colour. From the form of this Pig 
and the small size and shape of its ear, I should think that it is doubt- 
less derived from the wild stock of theisland. The traditions of the 
natives confirm this impression; and the Pig was the only domestic 
animal they were found to possess when the island first came under 
European observation. But why should domestication have changed 
the animal to a red colour instead of to black and white, the usual 
colours that first develope under its influence? As a rule animals 
in their variability have a less tendency to erythrism than to either 
albinism or melanism ; but domestication in this species has inaugu- 
rated change by developing the first in preference to the other two. 
The reason why, I cannot divine. I have found this red Pig cross 
readily with the Chinese black Pig; and the young in such cases 
appeared with indications of the stripes of the young wild Pig. But 
this I take to be due to the intermingling of the colours of the 
parents, and would probably have been carried into maturity had 
the offspring lived. My time was unfortunately too short to con- 
tinue experiments of this kind ; so I sent several of the red Pigs to 
England in the hope that somebody at home would take the mat- 
ter in hand. But my specimens were not hailed with a welcome. 
From the savages of the east coast of Formosa I received a pair 
of Pigs, black, white, and red, with moderate-sized ears, long face, 
and long bristles on the upper parts. These looked very like a cross 
between the red Pig and a domestic English Pig ; and it is not im- 
possible that some ship may have supplied to the natives on that 
coast the progenitors on the one side. The skull, however, of this 
Pig shows no great difference from that of the wild stock of the 
island, except in having a more prominent forehead and in the greater 
length of the bones of the face. 
Whilst at Amoy I received from Chefoo (North China) a strange 
variety of tame Pig, with a piebald woolly coat, the young of which 
